The narratives most often used to spread reproductive justice awareness always center the discussion on “Women’s Rights.” But since I’m not a woman, I’ve felt very disconnected from the spaces I work in….

I was twenty when I had a medicinal abortion, and I have been on some form of birth control since that time. Even though the ability to reproduce hasn’t always been a factor with the partners I have had, I like knowing that I have a back-up plan and hormonal regularity….

Even the intake forms at my local Planned Parenthood are incredibly trans-exclusive! When I went to Planned Parenthood to get birth control I wasn’t given the option to state my preferred name or personal pronouns….

You might love your new hashtag or slogan, and it might be pretty catchy, but take a moment to remember that the “War on Women” really only means one type of person: cis-women.

“A Woman’s Right to Choose,” “Women’s Health,” and “Women’s Access” are all phrases that erase me and others like me.

Using “women” as a catch-all term for “people with active uteruses” is incredibly problematic….

Remember basic diversity training…. Not everyone who gives birth identifies as a woman…

Don’t assume that because someone is feminine that they are a woman regardless of their assigned reproductive system….

If you aren’t catching my obvious personal feelings, I’ll make clear that I’m a femmenonbinary person who deals with this all the time. Make my life a little easier. C’mon.

JLS note: My hope is commenters won’t mock Jack. My goal in posting this is to shed light to pro-lifers on another element of confusion and lostness on the other side. What would you say to Jack if having coffee together?

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Dear “Jack”,
Jesus loves you and created you as a beautiful, wonderful women. HE does not make mistakes. If you have been seriously hurt by someone, abused, or confused about who you are, then I highly suggest turning to God and asking HIM to show you, who you are in HIS eyes. I will be praying for you.

femme binary??? WHAT? I’m afraid of this brave new world. Boy have we complicated things to the point where we hurt ourselves.

Our gender is written in our DNA. Mutilating your body through surgery or drugs will not change the truth of what you are. Your gender was determined at conception–the very moment your precious life began.

Pro-aborts try and say we are anti-science but they’re the ones pretending that anyone other than WOMEN can get pregnant and give birth. That just isn’t so. Our feelings do not alter biology. I may FEEL my unborn baby is a blob but that doesn’t make it so. I may FEEL I’m a different gender, race, or age but that doesn’t make it so. I may FEEL the lump in my breast is not cancer but that doesn’t make it so…etc…

Our feelings do NOT dictate TRUTH.

I don’t know what I’d say to Jack. But it makes me very sad there are such hurting, confused people out there.

It’s gotten to the point where we can’t even refer to people as “he” or “she” or “male” and “female” anymore. We can’t identify “boy” or “girl” anymore by sex organs??

I’m just waiting for the day when ultrasound technicians aren’t allowed to disclose the sex of the child anymore – not for fear of sex-selective abortion, but for fear that someone will come back and sue them one day for telling them their male child, who was born a boy, was an actual boy, but decided later that he was really a girl.

I’m still trying to figure out what these confused persons really believe. Do they really think that “feeling like a girl” (whatever that even means) means that they are female? What does it mean to BE female? Does it mean you like pink and dresses and dolls? Or does it simply mean that you are BORN with female sex organs? Does being a “boy” mean you like trucks and blue and playing in the dirt? Or does it mean being BORN with male sex organs?

One one hand, we’re told that we shouldn’t pin people down into certain stereotypical gender roles (and I agree with that, because one’s interests and feelings do NOT determine one’s sex), and then we’re told that because some people HAVE interests and feelings that are stereotypically associated with the opposite sex that they actually ARE that sex/gender, born in the wrong body.

It makes no sense, and frankly, I don’t think you can have it both ways. But since when does anyone really use rational thought over feelings anymore??

Linda, “nonbinary” means: “people who are not men or women, or are both men and women, or who are something else entirely, or are some combination of these things, or some of these things some of the time.”

“femme” means: “a term used to to denote a feminine gender expression or identity.”

So… Jack is a biological female, since she had an abortion… and bisexual, I think, since she wrote, “the ability to reproduce hasn’t always been a factor with the partners I have had”… but she is psychologically androgynous, while expressing herself as a woman. I think that’s right.

If she allows me the space to honest, I would humbly admit that I can’t share in the confusion.

Gender is a biological reality. It is not changed by language or lifestyle or hormones or surgery. She can live and pretend and behave as she wants to, and I will not object to that (even though it saddens me). I may even pretend with her and use the masculine pronouns, for the sake of peace and friendship.

That is how I behave toward a guy I know who strives to live as a woman.

this situation IS indeed ‘confusing’ because it is unusual/’new’. To the rare(or unique) person their self-image is not fixed, so it CAN be highly confusing. I have/am a very rare genetic disorder that seems to teach me all kinds of things about ‘uniqueness’. When linked with several negative traits, it starts to make sense: this right to-not-be-born especially if you are torn by feelings of acceptance and repulsion/rejection/exclusion..

John McDonell,
I am sorry you are torn by feelings of acceptance and repulsion, etc. That must feel awful. It seems like you are saying you, because of a kind of sadness over the way you “are,” believe you ought to have been able to choose not to have been born? Am I following what you have said correctly? If that is the correct interpretation, then, are you saying, if a couple finds they have a child on the way who could be like you, in your rare condition, then they OUGHT to abort that child? If so, can you see how, once we begin to impose requirements on human beings that they “be” a certain “way,” or we deem them “unworthy of” or “incompatible with” life, that that can be an extremely dangerous road to start down? I like a philosophy, instead, that views every single person as a sinner who is in some fundamental way, “deceived,” so that salvation of that sinner is possible if they can begin to be open to grace, so that those scales of deception can fall away, so that they can begin to accept their true dignity as a creature of God, and, more so, as His beloved child, if we can bring ourselves to accept the gift of His salvation? I know I’ve gotten a bit preachy on you here, but, I hope you will accept it in a spirit of concern–because your post seems to reveal a bit of sadness…maybe even some despair?

Hi Linda,
not to worry about me, I THINK! There is a bit of sadness in my life but it may stem from the fact that I do not belong to the ‘normal’ crowd and never will. I have gone to church every single Sunday for years and many parishioners know my name, even if I don’t know theirs in return. In my scooter, I am obvious. And it is obvious that Jesus and I are very close. (Perhaps its that I know in-my-heart some of His pains-of-rejection that were a part of His Cross.) Yet, I can count on one hand the number of Parishioners who have visited me in the last 20 years. Are they not my brothers/sisters, and am I not like them Abba’s adopted kid?

Dress like Rosie the riveter, as a real woman, and expect me not to address you as another woman? Sorry, I can’t read your mind! And I’m offended that you’d expect me to. That’s not honest, open, reasonable communication.

Jon, I’m sincerely sorry for your struggles. I wonder, on your end of hospitality, how many parishioners have you visited over the years?

John McDonell: hey peoples,
this situation IS indeed ‘confusing’ because it is unusual/’new’. To the rare(or unique) person their self-image is not fixed, so it CAN be highly confusing. I have/am a very rare genetic disorder that seems to teach me all kinds of things about ‘uniqueness’. When linked with several negative traits, it starts to make sense: this right to-not-be-born especially if you are torn by feelings of acceptance and repulsion/rejection/exclusion..

John, I’m sure it is confusing for young people, even more than being gay. To go from, “I’m supposed to be attracted to the other sex,” to “I’m supposed to *be* the other sex – the one that I don’t self-identify with,” is a powerful thing, a heck of a thing.

I think most people eventually come to terms with either situation, one way or another.
—–

As to what Jack said, I’d disagree with at least one thing:

You might love your new hashtag or slogan, and it might be pretty catchy, but take a moment to remember that the “War on Women” really only means one type of person: cis-women.

That’s not right. Those who would take away some of the rights that a woman now has would apply their wishes just as strongly to you, Jack.
—–

Remember basic diversity training…. Not everyone who gives birth identifies as a woman…

Don’t assume that because someone is feminine that they are a woman regardless of their assigned reproductive system….

Okay, but this is so far outside most people’s wheelhouse that it’s not easily internalized. It’s even going to take most people a while to think about it, at the time that somebody else beings it up, specifically.

The latter sentence: Somebody is feminine, and they have a female reproductive system…. Don’t assume they are a woman?

Again, this is going to take some getting used to, to say the least. Maybe, theoretically, in some totally inclusionist vision of the future, it could happen, but we are a long way from that.

John McDonell, have you invited anyone? I know for myself, I am extremely reluctant to “bother anyone.” Many I know seem to be struggling so much to raise their families or to pay their bills, and seems most Sundays people run off after church as fast as they can. Our parish has a lot of dinners and social activities, but I would say it’s a rare type of parish, because many rush in to church and then rush off afterward. All I know is, maybe don’t assume people would be unwilling to be a friend to you. Perhaps your fear of possible rejection is making it hard for you to reach out to anyone. I will agree, there are many of us in the Christian walk who “don’t know what to do” with someone among us who seems “different.” I guess what I am saying is, maybe you could think of whether you’re unconsciously hanging out a kind of nonverbal “keep away” sign? God bless…hope you find a good friend or two from your parish soon. I’ll pray for that, anyway.

Linda Cook thats a good point. After my husband died I felt so alone and isolated. I pushed people away. I am 18 months in and I have remarried. I still have days where I want to be alone. But reaching out is a 2 way street. I had unfriended some widows on facebook who were further along than I was. I went back to refriend many. We are all members of this terrible club we never asked to be in. They assured me it gets better and it has. Its a slow process and your entire life changes but little by little it gets better.

I agree prax. It sounds like she needs our prayer. As Kel has pointed out the entire issue just confuses me. It becoming confusing. I still say if you were born with a male brain you are a man and same goes for a woman. I would not address Jack as a he or a slut either.

Ok, I’m a little late to the thread, but let me see if I understand Jack (the pretty new one ;>)): you are complaining that you have not been included by an industry whose sole purpose on earth is to destroy, for money, unwanted children?. And you feel marginalized and un represented? Dear pretty Jack! Count yourself lucky! The people you’re trying to impress would see you sucked into a jar and discarded like trash when you were the most vulnerable and small.

I’m sorry for the loss of your child. Come over to our side. We cherish life. We don’t condone destroying those who are different.

Thanks philimiss. Guess I should start with a sort-of-explanation: I am celebate and have been so all my life. Have to laugh though, being celebate {not-married + without sex like a priest or nun], must be rare because my spell-checker underlines it as a mistake. This lifestyle is difficult but it but it can be less-so, if shared in a like-minded community.

In recent years, the impact of a lifestyle chosen decades ago is having repercussions that make statements like ‘cherish-life’ to be almost a foreign language -incomprehensible. There is no next generation to ‘help’ only perceived as interfering.

‘cherish-life’ must not become another hollow phrase, but the music in the dance that celebrates-life.

At Carafem, staff members plan to greet clients with warm teas, comfortable robes and a matter-of-fact attitude.

“We don’t want to talk in hushed tones,” said Carafem president Christopher Purdy. “We use the A-word.”…

Because Carafem will offer only the abortion pill, not vacuum aspiration or other surgical procedures, prospective clients must be no more than 10 weeks pregnant….

After receiving counseling and some basic tests, Carafem clients will take an initial pill at the clinic. Purdy’s team expects to get them in and out quickly, within about 60 minutes. They will be sent home with a second set of pills to take the next day. The second dose induces the abortion, which resembles a miscarriage, typically within six hours.

By offering only pharmaceutical abortions, Purdy says, he can avoid purchasing expensive surgical equipment and keep prices low for clients. The average pharmaceutical abortion cost about $500 in the United States in 2011, Guttmacher figures show; Purdy plans to charge around $400.

Another striking aspect of the project is the design: The clinic will have wood floors and a natural wood tone on the walls that recalls high-end salons such as Aveda. Appointments, offered evenings and weekends, can be booked online or via a 24-hour hotline.

“It was important for us to try to present an upgraded, almost spa-like feel,” said Melissa S. Grant, vice president of health services for the clinic.

If the project is successful, Purdy says, he hopes to expand his model to other states.